


the forces of attraction (between us, not the atoms)

by teesandjays



Category: Gallagher Girls Series - Ally Carter
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 14:07:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teesandjays/pseuds/teesandjays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abby has a crush, so sue her. She's a hormonal teenager, it's not like she can help it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the forces of attraction (between us, not the atoms)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hapsburgs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hapsburgs/gifts).



> a late christmas gift for christine. merry christmas my lovely, i hope you like it xo! 
> 
> (i'm sorry that i'm not sorry about the title)

Monday morning starts with a bang. No literally, first period Chemistry sees Steve Saunders causing a very unfortunate reaction with potassium, water and fire that results in a lot of crying and a trip to the emergency room. His lab partner, Catherine Goode, watches the entire incident with a look of equal amusement and disdain, as is her default with basically every human in existence.

Abby watches with barely concealed glee, ninety eight percent because she hates Steve and two percent because it means the rest of class is canceled and she can spend first period bitching about shit to Joe who has a free.

Despite Abby's best wishes, their teacher doesn't let them out and instead goes into lecture mode about safety in the lab. Before she starts though, she sees it fit to inform them that Abigail will now be Catherine’s partner until Mr. Saunders returns to school, seeing as her own partner should be fine on his own until then.

Edward sends Abby an unreservedly smug look at that to which she responds by punching him in his thigh. It makes her feel marginally better until she looks over at Catherine who’s pointed grimace makes it abundantly clear about her feelings on the recent turn of events.

“I don’t think she likes you very much,” Townsend whispers into her ear. She huffs out an aggravated sigh and flicks him in the ear, muttering under her breath, “I don’t like _you_ very much.”

“Trust me, it’s mutual,” he deadpans, cradling his ear to his hand with a disgruntled look on his face.

Abby hums in response, her gaze still locked on Catherine who has taken to staring out the window. She seems blissfully unaware of Mrs. Buckingham filling them in on proper lab techniques, her eyes trained on a fixed point outside; her lips quirk just the tiniest bit downward in the moment between one blink and the next. Mrs. Buckingham continues to lecture them on the importance of not pouring random substances into the mixture when you’re finished with the experiment to see what colours it’ll turn; Abby drags her eyes away and back to Edward.

“Weren’t you and Catherine in some sort of weird, secret, quasi romantic relationship at some point last year?” Abby says, hoping it comes off as nonchalant as she wants it to be. From the judgmental look he’s sending her way, she thinks she might have missed the mark a bit. Whatever, that’s okay. Abby can roll with the punches, she just responds in kind with an innocent smile.  

He rolls his eyes at her, “We had a lot of angry sex if that’s what you mean by ‘relationship’.”

“Interesting,” Abby mumbles, her eyes are sliding back over to where Catherine’s sitting only to be met with a pair of dark eyes staring directly back at her. Abby can feel her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline in almost instinctive response. Catherine looks away to hide her snort of laughter behind her hand. Her eyes flicker back up to Abby under a thick brushing of eyelashes; the impish glint in them makes her skin itch.

Abby’s cheeks feel distinctly warmer when she looks away.

Townsend makes a thoughtful noise next to her, “On second thought, maybe she _does_ like you.”

Abby refuses to answer back.

-

“What’s your opinion of Catherine Goode?” is the first thing out of Abby’s mouth when she sits down next to Joe for lunch. Abby’s not one for beating around the bush; any way you take it, it’s not like she’s known for her subtlety.

Joe raises an eyebrow but responds without hesitation.

“Looks like she can kill you with her eyes, would not mind her killing me with her vagina.”

“Wonderful,” Abby sighs.

Joe shrugs, “Not like you weren’t thinking the same thing.” Which, technically yes she was thinking that, but god at least she has the decency to sound a little more eloquent in her own mind. 

“She’s my new lab partner,” she comments, idly poking at her salad. Joe makes a face before taking a bite of his burger only to have approximately ninety percent of the contents fall out.

“That was unfortunate,” he says sending his food a blaleful glance before looking up at her, “your life is more unfortunate.”

“Thanks for that,” she says faux cheerfully stabbing a piece of chicken and imagining that it's Joe’s head.

“Anytime babe,” he replies easily. Before she can say anything back to him, he steals the piece of chicken off her fork and pops it in his mouth with a smug look of glee. She pushes aside the Catherine problem in favour of beating the shit out of him.

- 

Her first class with Catherine goes something like this: Catherine reaches twenty minutes later for class, long after Abby’s already reluctantly started writing up the lab. She’s in a particularly pissy mood today; her English teacher surprised them with a pop quiz first thing this morning and she's barely trudging along after staying up all night studying for a Calc test she has next period.

Abby’s already shit at Chemistry and she always manages to mess up the experiments which is why Edward had pretty much been a godsend. Even though she wanted to punch him in the face every five minutes, he was ace at Chem and always helped her with her labs (she overlooks the fact that his help mostly consisted of condescending remarks about her intelligence interspersed with actual helpful information).

“Don’t worry, Cat’s pretty decent at Chem, I’m sure she won’t let you fail too badly,” he’d told her this morning when they were walking into class. She’d shot him a particularly unamused look to which he’d just laughed at – and a genuine one at that and she’d only been privy to those about five times since they’d been partners.

“On the bright side, you can still beg Miss for me back when you realize I’m your only salvation for this class,” he’d said, that stupid, self-satisfied grin plastered firmly on his face. She’d just slapped him on the arm and turned away from him (and it was only partially to hide the slightly fond smile that had threatened to come out).

Needless to say, she’d already had to start over the lab twice at this point and a headache the size of Joe’s ego was beginning to form at the back of her head.

“Nice of you to finally join us,” she sniped without thinking as Catherine sat her bag down on the floor. Catherine had looked up at her with a mildly annoyed look before her features smoothed out, a sly smirk seamlessly taking over the frown that was there only seconds before.

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch Cameron,” she said sliding onto her stool with more grace than any respectful teenager had any right to have.

“Trust me, they’re just fine,” Abby deadpanned, steadfastly focusing on the words in front of her.

“That’s too bad,” she’d just replied airily. The sound that came out of Abby’s mouth was less than dignified, much less the blush she could feel rising from the base of her neck.

Abby refused to reply to that, the words in front of her barely registering when she could feel Catherine’s piercing gaze looking over at her every few minutes throughout the rest of the period.

-

The next two weeks pass in a similar manner: Abby goes to class, Catherine reaches late and proceeds to make everything she says sound like an innuendo. Abby hasn’t blushed this much since she was twelve and kissed Joe at their favourite spot in the park because her birthday was the next week and she wasn’t going to be become a teenager without having her first kiss, how uncool.

She tries not to let it get to her, not to let Catherine’s sly glances and her fleeting touches affect her outwardly too much.

She fails spectacularly. 

On Thursday Catherine had brushed an escaped piece of hair off of Abby's neck and her fingers gliding across the warm skin there had resulted in her fumbling with the beaker of water in her hands and almost breaking the damn thing. The smirk Catherine had sent her after half the contents had spilled all over the table made Abby want to wipe the smug look off her face with her fists. Lips. Fists. Both most probably if she's being honest.

The point of the story is that Abby’s had it up to here with Catherine Goode.

-

“How did you know Catherine was into you?” she growls at Edward during lunch that day, both fists twisted into his collar and a desperate lilt to her voice.

He stares at her for a few seconds, a confused look on his face as if he’s gauging if she’s serious or not before bursting into laughter.

“Oh Abigail,” he chuckles, two warm hands coming up to pry hers off his shirt, “trust me, you’ll know when you know.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” she whines hating how it sounds to her own ears – Catherine Goode will rue the day she made Abby attracted to her.

“Well first of all, she’s staring right at us,” he replies flicking out a finger to push her face back to his when she automatically goes to look around the cafeteria.

“Secondly, she’s looking at me like she hopes her gaze alone will burn me to a flaming crisp.”

She tamps down on the glee that’s rising up inside her at this words because who’s to say Edward’s not just a delusional fool whose eyesight’s two sun glances away from being blind. The smile she keeps trying to bite down is a dead giveaway though if the way he rolls his eyes at her is any indicator.

“To your right, by the vending machines,” he says, tilting his head slightly in said direction.

Abby turns slowly to make it seem like she’s just looking around and true to his word, Catherine is staring at them with the most intense look she’s ever seen on someone since her mother found her and Rachel with the kitchen almost burnt to the ground after they’d tried to bake a cake.

It’s like that but a lot less ‘God help me why did you let me make these children’ and more straight up ‘I just want to murder you’.

“She could be jealous of me,” Abby grumbles, still refusing to hope for the best.

“Trust me, Catherine and I are over and done with,” he says in a tone that bookers no argument. He lets go of her hand that he’s had clasped in his for the last few minutes with a knowing grin that she can’t help but blush at.

Abby has a crush, so sue her. She's a hormonal teenager, it's not like she can help it.

“Seems like she has her sights set on someone new,” he teases but the light in her eyes tells her that he means it.

She glances back away and finds Catherine sitting a few tables from where she just was. She looks like she usually does – unaffected by the world at large, but Abby knows where to look, can see the slight downturn of her lips and the furrow between her brow that’s only there when she’s focusing really hard if she’s confused by a particularly difficult question in class.

Something a little like hope starts to settle in her stomach, makes her feel warm and giddy inside – the feeling is foreign, but not unwelcome in the slightest.

-

“What, no pissy comment today?” is what Catherine finally says after five minutes go pass and Abby hasn’t commented on her tardiness, or said anything to her for that matter. Abby hears just a tinge of bitterness in there and can’t help but smile.

“Nope,” Abby replies and looks across at her with a sunny smile. Catherine looks taken aback for a second before she seems to catch herself and lets out a huff and turns away.

“What’s got your panties in a bunch?” Abby asks in that same cheerful tone.

“My panties are none of your fucking business thanks,” Catherine snaps, slamming her notebook open and flipping through the paces so aggressively it leaves Abby wondering how they don’t rip.

“That’s too bad,” she tells her, an echo of her first conversation, but it’s soft and teasing and lacking all of the flirtiness of Catherine’s usual responses. It seems like Abby isn’t the only one to remember that first interaction if the way Catherine freezes is any response.

Catherine’s head turns to her slowly, her bottom lip caught between her teeth in way that makes Abby want to replace it with her own, nip on it till it turns red and bruised then get her lips on them – see if they’re just as soft as Abby imagines they are.

Abby meets her gaze with a hesitant smile and gets a raised eyebrow for her troubles. Abby just shrugs because words aren’t going to come easily with the butterflies in her stomach and the look on Catherine’s face.

There’s a second when neither of them says anything before Catherine lets of a tiny laugh, her fist immediately coming up to her mouth to muffle it.

“Yeah, it is,” she says when her giggles finally die down. It’s honest and quiet but full of promise in its meaning.

“Well,” Abby starts feeling her smile transform into a smirk, “let’s change that.”

Catherine laughs again, but it sounds a lot like ‘yes’ so Abby’s fine with that.


End file.
